


And the Walls Keep Tumbling Down

by SeptemberEndings



Category: Doctor Who, Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur took a LOOONG time to come back, Gen, General Angst, Jethro & Merlin are the same people, Midnight Episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 15:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2855633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeptemberEndings/pseuds/SeptemberEndings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not the first time the Doctor has met Jethro. The Doctor wants to know why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And the Walls Keep Tumbling Down

**Author's Note:**

> I found this deep within my old collection of works, so I apologize for any typos or inaccuracies. I hardly remember writing this, but once I unearthed it I couldn't help but clean it up a bit and then post it :) Merry Christmas, I suppose?

The first time he’d met Jethro hadn’t been on Midnight, not really.

It was a stupid case, hardly looking into--Rose had been there though, all smiles and shining hair, and he’d felt the compulsion to keep her safe and sound. So he’d found a small town just on the edge of a jungle planet, where the villagers gathered food most of the day, and tried to find the so-called God they had there.

All of the villagers were strikingly humanoid, and it made Rose feel at ease. She’d gotten on with the lot of them, and the Doctor was simultaneously pleased and worried that she’d let slip what they were doing. It wasn’t a very advanced society, and he wanted to make sure that they stayed in the shadows.

She’d made a good friend with a man named Rojeth. He was strange; advanced, yet somehow almost medieval with his speak. He had the type of smile that worried the Doctor--bright and wide and unspeakably sad. When he’d spoken to the Doctor, his eyes sparkled dangerously.

“It is good to meet you, sir,” he’d said. There was a fluidity and a bounce to his speak that wasn’t present in the other aliens. “It is as if remembering a friend I suspect neither of us have met yet. I look forward to more meetings with you.” He winked, but it wasn’t a pleasant wink. It was the gesture of a lonely man. The Doctor had taken Rose and left shortly afterwards, feeling quite certain he’d cracked the case of the perpetuated immortal. He wondered if it was as perpetuated as he’d thought.

The next time was with Martha. 1914, and he’d hardly known who he was at the time. There was a veil over those memories; the Doctor suspected it had to do with the mortal eyes.

As John Smith, he’d once bumped into the black-haired genius.

He was a senior student now, quiet and sharp. John had bumped into him while carting new books into his classroom, and had apologized like a bumbling idiot, grasping at the texts that now covered the floor like snow. The student had leaned down, helping him pick up the haphazard literature.

“Thank you, thank you...uh…” John trailed off, looking at the man in confusion. His mind seemed to be trying to shine a torch into the shadows, screaming at him to remember.

“Theo Jr.,” he supplied. His eyes resembled not the sea or the sky, but the kind of...thing that made people weak in their hearts in knees. Striking and soft, his blue eyes studied John, a hurricane in his neutral expression. His voice sounded like whiskey, and John absentmindedly wondered if he was a smoker.

“Well, thanks, Theo...I really must be going...thanks, uh, again…” John practically ran to his room. Theo stared after him, a playful, reckless smirk building up in his cheeks.

The third time, he’d managed to realize who it was. After the whole Midnight fiasco, he was almost ready to let it go and go back to Donna and run, because god knows did he feel his age.

Almost.

He’d caught Jethro right as he was leaving the station. His parents, oddly enough, were nowhere to be found.

The Doctor wondered if it really was odd at all.

Almost ready to call Jethro, he stopped. Then, almost too quiet, he said instead, “Rojeth. Talk to me, please.”

Jethro turned around, almost terrified. He noticed the Doctor, a shadow himself, right between two totally insignificant pillars. He almost looked resigned as he stalked towards the Doctor. There were questions on his mouth, his ears, his eyes, but the Doctor had questions of his own and as soon as Jethro got near he almost scorned,

“Who are you and how do you keep appearing?” It was a question but his voice wobbled. As soon as he got near Jethro, he realized that he looked so worn and calloused it almost physically hurt the Doctor.

“Why do you care?” Jethro’s eyes disappeared into his sticky black hair.

“I dislike dangerous mysteries.” The Doctor’s eyes almost imperceptibly narrowed. “Answer the question.”

“What’s with the hostility?”

“What was with you not sticking up for that creature?”

Jethro’s shoulders caved towards each other, and for the first time the Doctor realized how skinny the kid was. “I’ve learned to distrust, and that holds true for you, Doctor.”

“I...I never told you my name.”

“But we both know that it isn’t your name. It’s just what you call yourself out of need to feel like you are helping.”

The Doctor felt the acid attack his hearts, but he didn’t allow his expression change. “You can’t know so much.”

Jethro’s eyes turned into a windstorm. “I can. I see you, and I see everything you’ve seen, everything you've done. I’ve seen everything. I am more powerful than a Time Lord, and you may think you’ve been through it all but you haven’t. You haven’t felt the loss of someone you love die in your hands when you could’ve saved them. You haven’t seen your home die out and people disgrace and ravage the land you once loved. You haven’t had to wait and wait and wait until your skin crinkles and the sun burns away all that you once were. You have no idea.You. Know. Nothing.”

“Merlin.”

Jethro’s eyes flash gold for a single solitary moment, before melting away into an ink blotch color. The Doctor looked down.

When he looked back up, he found himself standing on a green isle in the middle of a drab, misted lake.

“He won’t come back. I thought...maybe during the American Revolution. Or the French. When Hitler rose...I was almost sure. But he didn’t rise. Millions of people razed to the ground. Empires rising and falling and pushing and pulling. He won’t return...And my power is too strong. It is taking me…blood doesn’t run through my veins anymore, Doctor. It’s just magic. I’m becoming...and he’s...and he won’t…”

Merlin gripped his head. The blue of his irises sparked and crackled like lightning. The Doctor knew there was no cure, no way to know when the mythical Arthur would rise again. He was so lonely, and there was so much the Doctor could do. He held out his hand to Merlin.

“Come with me?”

“Will it bring him back?”

Blank tears were running down Merlin's face. The Doctor put a hand on his shoulder.

“I don’t know. But the power is consuming you. You’ll be able to put it to good use.”

“You’re...sure?”

“Please. Come with me.”

“...Okay.” **  
**


End file.
